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Segway history
Segway company history timeline
The iBOT was revealed to the public on Dateline NBC in a segment by John Hockenberry on June 30, 1999.
These investments were lined up in the spring of 2000.
A book proposal about the HT--then known only as Ginger or "IT,"--was leaked to the press in January 2001, prompting a whirlwind of media speculation about the nature of the new device.
After months of speculation about the nature of "IT," the Segway Human Transporter (HT) was officially unveiled in December 2001.
When it was launched in December 2001, the annual sales target was 40,000 units, and the company expected to sell 50,000 to 100,000 units in the first 13 months.
Segway was invented by Dean Kamen , and was first shown to the public in 2001 by ABC ‘s Good Morning America program.
2001: The Segway HT is unveiled.
Following models include the i167, E167, P113 and the i180 (li-ion battery). 2003: Launch of Segway RMP through a contract with DARPA and the first annual ‘Segway Fest’.
Although brilliantly designed and meticulously built, two significant drawbacks hobbled the PT: It cost $4,950 and it was hard to look like anything other than a nerd riding one. It became a punchline, and then a trope, as a prop in television shows like “Arrested Development” and movies like “Mall Cop.” It didn’t help that guys like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak took to playing polo with them and that President George W. Bush fell off of one in 2003.
The IBOT was in clinical trials in 2002. Its manufacturer, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, hoped to begin selling the devices by the summer of 2003 at a projected cost of $25,000 each.
Norrod was doing everything he could to rein in costs and keep Segway afloat when General Motors threw him a lifeline in 2007.
By 2007, cumulative sales were 30,000 units.
However, only 23,500 units sold in the first 5 years, and just 50,000 had sold by March 2009.
During this stage of decline, Segway Inc. was purchased in December 2009 by British millionaire and inventor, Jimi Heselden.
In 2009 General Motors announced that it was building a prototype two-seat electric vehicle with Segway.
An early prototype of the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle, dubbed Project P.U.M.A., was demonstrated in New York a day ahead of the press previews for the 2009 New York International Auto Show.
The two companies started developing the EN-V, a pod-shaped lightweight electric vehicle concept that GM would unveil three years later at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
The company was sold to Jimi Heselden in 2010, but an unfortunate accident ended his life shortly thereafter.
At Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the successor was presented, the "EN-V project".
In February 2013, Summit Strategic Investments, LLC, announced it had acquired the company for $9 million, saying that it planned to refocus, grow its product portfolio and expand its worldwide network.
What better way to get a sense of the place than to zip about on its signature product? It was early 2013, a rough time for the startup and its aspirations of changing how the world gets around.
In March 2014, Segway announced third generation designs, including the i2 SE and x2 SE, new handlebar frame and powerbase designs, with integrated lighting.
In September 2014, Segway filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission about the infringement of several of its patents by several Chinese companies, including Ninebot, Shenzhen INMOTION Technologies and Robstep Robot.
The two sides quickly closed the deal, which was announced April 15, 2015.
Two years later, on April 1, 2015, Summit Strategic Investments sold the company for more than $75 million.
On April 1, 2015, Segway was acquired by Ninebot Inc., a Beijing-based transportation robotics startup that had raised $80M USD from Xiaomi and Sequoia Capital.
In May 2016, it was announced that the Segway miniPRO, a smaller self-balancing scooter, would be launched in June that year.
Silicon Valley-backed Bird and Lime, both of which launched in 2017, lead the trend.
By 2017, the sharing and gig economies were in full swing, two things essential to the success of companies like Lime and Bird.
At CES 2019, Ninebot showcased a variety of innovative and ambitious Segway projects, including the Drift W1 e-skates and Ninebot GoKart kit, both firsts of their kind.
Later at the SEMA 2019 show, two such dirt eBike models were announced, the X260 and X160.
That patent has since expired, although it was followed by various others, and some patents assigned to the company have not yet expired (as of early 2019).
In 2019 the sur-ron corporation announced to the press some major investments coming from segway along with a plan to help design an ebike for segway and eventually move towards off-road motorcycles.
On July 15, 2020, Ninebot ceased production of the Segway PT and laid off the 21 employees working at the Bedford, New Hampshire plant.
Segway’s concept transporter prototype Segway S-Pod is selected by TIME Magazine as one of the Best of CES 2020.
eScooter T moped receives Innovation Award at CES 2021.
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Segway, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Segway. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Segway. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Segway. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Segway and its employees or that of Zippia.
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